Page 71 of Too Old for This
“This sounds very bizarre,” I say.
“I know. But it’s mydaughter. How can I ignore any message, even if it’s anonymous? The police have already stopped looking.”
“Have you learned anything new?”
“I’m waiting to see if anyone will call again or leave a message…I’m honestly not sure what to do next. But I can’t figure out which one is lying. Tula or Cole—it has to be one of them.”
“I wouldn’t trust Tula, not after his lies about Plum having a bruise on her head.” I stand up and grab my plate. “I’m going to get a little more sauce. Do you want anything?”
She waves her hand and takes another sip of wine. Norma has eaten all of her eggplant pasta but hasn’t touched the vegetables. “No, no. I’m fine.”
In the kitchen, I spoon a little more sauce onto the pasta. As I turn to go back into the dining room, the dizziness hits.
My vision blurs.
I grab the counter but can’t hold myself up.
CHAPTER 39
The smell is the same. Old wood and steeped tea mixed with pine cones and a hint of mold. I’d know my living room anywhere.
I try to lift my arm. It doesn’t budge. I try to stand up. Same thing. My arms and legs will not move.
It takes a minute to realize I’m tied to one of the dining room chairs. A rope is wrapped around my middle, binding me to the chair and pinning my arms at my sides. My ankles are tied with a second rope.
I twist and move, trying to get free. The rope cuts into my skin, making me wince, but I don’t stop.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Norma says. She is sitting in my recliner.
“What did you—”
“I didn’t poison you. Just something to knock you out for a little while.”
She wants me to be grateful. I want to spit on her.
No daylight peeks in through the curtains, which means it’s still dark outside. I haven’t been unconscious for the whole night. I look down and inspect the ropes. She brought these with her. They aren’t mine. Norma planned this long before she knocked on my door.
“I’m not crazy,” she says.
Norma is a lot of things right now. My brain is struggling to grasp them all. A grieving and desperate mother, yes. Crazy, also yes. The important question ishowcrazy.
Perhaps I pushed her a little far. The note was too much, or the second phone call might have done it. The Mommy thing could have pushed her over the edge.
Or maybe she jumped off the sanity cliff all on her own.
“Ms.Dixon,” I say, “let’s talk about—”
“What did you do to Plum?”
“I didn’t do anything to her.”
She wags her finger at me. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare deny it.”
Norma pulls a cigarette out of her bag, lights it with an orange Bic, and looks around for something to use as an ashtray. She zeroes in on a glass trinket bowl. The room fills up with that noxious odor.
Please don’t smoke in my house.
“It took me a while to figure out what’s really going on.” She leans forward in the recliner, close enough for me to smell her breath. Tobacco with a hint of garlic. “But it finally dawned on me that you’re at the center of everything. It’s like one of those graphs you see in the movies, like when they’re going after the mob and they have everyone on a board with pins and strings.”
